タスク1 — 変化を表す言語

A share can rise by points or by a percentage

• Moving from 20% to 35% gives a 15-point change and a different relative percentage change. Decide which quantity you mean before choosing the phrase.

• Up: rise, increase, climb, grow, go up; and steeply — soar, rocket, surge. Down: fall, decrease, decline, drop, go down; and steeply — plummet, plunge, slump.

• Neither: level off, plateau, remain stable, stay constant, hold steady. Up and down: fluctuate, vary, be erratic. The turn: peak at, reach a high of, bottom out, hit a low of.

A line that stays flat is allowed to have a quiet day.

Match the preposition to the quantity

• rise BY 20 — the size of the change. rise TO 20 — where it ended. rise FROM 10 TO 30 — both, in one phrase. a rise OF 20 — the noun form takes of.
• ⚠ increased of 20%, increased to 20% when you mean by, and rise from 10 until 30 confuse the size of a change with its endpoint. Use the preposition that matches the quantity you mean.

Per cent and percentage point

• A rise from 20% to 24% is a rise of 4 percentage points. It is also a rise of 20%, because 4 is a fifth of 20.
• ⚠ Writing "a rise of 4%" for that change is a factual error, not a style choice, and an examiner reads it as inaccuracy. For these values, from 20% to 24% reports the endpoints accurately; still check the visual’s labels and units.

Comparison and approximation

• Comparison: twice as many as, three times the figure for, by far the largest, slightly higher than, roughly the same as, half the level of. Approximation: just over, just under, nearly, around, approximately, a little more than.
• Proportion: a third of, two thirds of, the vast majority of, a small minority of. Use approximation deliberately. Just under a quarter is useful when the exact value is not needed; 24.3% is appropriate when that precision supports the comparison.

Turn a verb into a noun, and vary the sentence

• Sales rose sharply → there was a sharp rise in sales. The figure fell steadily → a steady fall in the figure. These give two grammatical ways to express one fact. Range also includes other suitable structures; varied wording should preserve the meaning.
• Pair it with the adverbs — sharply, steadily, gradually, dramatically, slightly, marginally — and one chart can be described in a dozen ways without repeating a sentence pattern.

Distinguish the size of a change from its endpoint

Language and format checked on 2 October 2026: official IELTS Writing guide. Our numerical cases are original examples.